by Anne Thomas Soffee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2002
Spirited and engaging, even for those who don't have a yen to undulate.
A vigorous, funny account of the effects of blighted romance cured, sort of, by a course in belly dancing.
Now an English teacher to troubled teens, newcomer Soffee recalls growing up in Richmond in a household dominated by her father's unpredictable but staunch Lebanese family. After a stint in California as a rock-star gofer (with all of the drugs and sex that implies) and alcoholism rehab, she slouched back home, her heart broken by a tattoo artist. After months of self-pity, over the protests of friends and family (“Your daddy ought to smack your face,” said great-aunt Frances), she enrolled in a belly-dancing class. Her rationale was to preserve her heritage, her real motive was never entirely clear, but she exulted in it. Part of the pleasure came from her new cohorts, mostly 30- to 40-year-olds with wide hips and convex bellies. (No pressure here to be supermodels.) Once into the world of belly dancing, Soffee describes her adventures in show biz: entertaining at nursing homes, at private parties (delivering “bellygrams”), at county fairs, and, memorably, at redneck bars. She shops for costumes, attends workshops and conventions, and waits breathlessly for the performance of a fabled Egyptian who dances with 12 lighted candles balanced on her head. Caught up in the ethnic wave, Soffee spends hours on the Internet tracking down potential Arab mates, only to discover that belly dancers are regarded not as guardians of an ancient tradition, but akin to strippers and prostitutes. Soffee gives a rousing defense of serious belly-dance students and performers, announcing a happy ending as she finds love with an gun-toting Aryan who honors her belly-dancing commitment by presenting her with a snag-proof engagement ring that wouldn't “get hung up on your veils.”
Spirited and engaging, even for those who don't have a yen to undulate.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-55652-458-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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